Martinsburg daily gazette. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1887-1887, 1887-05-21
DEATH ON THE GARROTE.
A DREADFUL PICTURE or CAPITAL
PUNISHMENT IN SPAIN.
How Holiday Is Celebrated In the
Land Of the Olive-The Trepidation
with Which Criminal Met His
Doom.

with Which Criminal Met His
Doom.
Suddenly the crowd halts and a great
silence falls. A close carriage, with
blinds down, escorted by picket Of civil
guards, slowly passes through the press.
We can follow it without hurrying our
selves.
In little while the place of execution
appears before me, thronged with mul
titude swaying like tide, and up from
the sea of heads energies the white mast
of the scaffold.
approach.
Lying upon a stool, covered with snow
white cloth, is the garrote itself-shim.
mering like crown of steel In q little
while the executioner will attach it to a
post against which the criminal is to be
fastened. The final preparations con-
sumed considerable time, so that I was
well able to make leisurely examination
of the sinister locality whittier curiosity
had drawn me for the purpose of studying
the physiognomy of the great pushing or
squeezing crowd. AS always, and in all
places, the women were the most numer-
GUS.
Now there is great movement around
the scaffold.. The soldiers close their
ranks and three men approach the .,caf-
fold. One of them asccnds it. 1t is the
executioner. He is thin, low sized and
looks about 40 years old While waiting
for his victim he keeps walking nervously
to and fro with his hands behind his back
and his head down. From time to time.
he stops and looks at the argolla the
"garrote'') with a suspicious expression
of countenance. Perhaps he is afraid of
the power Of resistance possessed by the
cervical yertebrB of Alvarez, AMI is there
fore afraid of losing his bounty.
THE DISMAL sCAFFoLD.
Noisy as it was little while ago, the
crowd now suddenly becomes silent.
Some women arc turning Iale; and one
can feel that u nervous eXcit ment weighs
upon the crowd. "A low rumbIing Is
heard 1t is the black CIR, age that bears
the condemned man. Itftops at the foot
of the scaffold; and the criminal is soon
painfully climbing the twelve high steps
of the dismal scaffold, leaning on the arm
of a priest. Another priest prccedes him,
lifting very high an immense cruciffx.
toward which the condemned man strives
to turn his terror stricken face. Alvarez
Olivia is not yet rs years old; and it was
believed that the savage energy he had
displayed in committing his crime, to-
gether with his vigorous youth, would
give him strength to face death. But
nothing of the kind is now shown by him;
and really it was too much to expect Of
man who knew his fate forty eight hours
ago, and who. while listening to the flu
neral chants in the prison chapel, must
have beheld all kinds Of hideOus visions
passing before him.
This rule Of obliging the condemned to
listen during tho two nights preceding his
execution to an interminable series of
prayers, requiems, De Profundis chants,
uttered for the repose of his soul by his
fellow criminals, seems to me something
and / can see in it the last
yestige of the ferocious medieval mysti- |
cism of Spain, with all its unconscious
cruelty. As / stood on an elevation over 4
looking the scaffold, was able to observe
all the details of the last scene Of the
tragedy. The condemned man mechan-
lcaAy yielded himself up to the executioner.
The latter sat down at the foot of the 4
post, with his back to it and then tied his .
this without hurrying himself in the least,
and with all the dignified indifference
which characterizes the Spanish function +
airy in the discharge OF his duty. II the
had lasted even a few seconds
longer believe should have lost my
own self control could hear my heart
humping in my breast. and every mo-
nent or two something like veil came
before my eyes.
THF IRON COLLAR.